The present invention relates to an assembly for testing a disc drive slider, and more particularly to a slider test socket of efficient construction to allow economical testing of sliders, even in high track density environments.
The processes employed for manufacturing transducing heads for disc drives are complex and susceptible to manufacturing errors. As a result, the yield of acceptable transducing heads is relatively low, and accurate testing is required to detect faulty heads. This testing requires a head to be carried over a rotating disc in the same general manner that would be employed in operation of a disc drive. Traditionally, this meant that an entire assembled disc drive (or at least the head suspension portion of the disc drive) would be tested, and discarded in its entirety or rebuilt if the head was defective. This procedure was wasteful and inefficient.
More recently, the concept of a “spin-stand” has been developed to allow a smaller portion of the disc drive to be tested in order to verify the operability of a transducing head. This allows a head gimbal assembly (HGA) to be mounted on the stand and tested separately from the remainder of the disc drive. However, even this design is wasteful, since the mechanical components of the HGA have to be scrapped when a faulty transducing head is detected.
In addition to the need for an efficient mechanism for testing transducing heads, the demands on the resolution of positioning the transducing head have increased as well, such that the conventional rotary motor actuation assemblies (e.g., a voice coil motor) may be unable to position the head with enough precision for operation or for effective testing. Rotary actuators also present problems in interconnecting hardware with successively tested parts, preventing optimal resonant performance. Microactuators have been proposed to perform the high resolution positioning of the head needed for operation of the disc drive, and may also be needed for effective testing as well.
An improved mechanism for testing transducing heads is needed in the art, and is the subject of the present invention.